I want to get into Brave, but the New Tab screen is boring on iOS. I would like to add a custom URL to redirect for the New Tab like how Firefox does, that way I can redirect to search.brave.com, google.com, or some other site.
I second that. I don’t understand why it’s not possible at all, like in any other browser.
For example, I’d like to open the startpage.com site on each new tab. There’s a way to almost work around the oversight by setting a new tab as a search, but it won’t autofocus on the search field, so I have to reach my mouse and click on it (and there’s no benefit in not doing the autofocus in the first place). So the only solution would be a regular URL for each new tab.
There’s a kind of work-around by defining the home button URL, then selecting Homepage for the new tab, but yet again it fails to focus properly on the search field: it focuses on the address bar instead of focusing on the search field as it should do per the page’s script (this actually looks like a bug).
I was going to say, you can set the homepage here (unless iOS doesn’t even have this?)
But if I understand you specifically, you want it so the page loads (as in when opening a new tab), but still has pre-focus on the search bar? (If I understand that right, I actually second that, and love the idea).
@MasterLink just a FYI, the New Tab Page and Home Page would be two separate settings in general. Which you seem to kind of get into. On Desktop you can set the NTP to be your Homepage, which is any custom website.
Unfortunately, this isn’t an option on Mobile devices.
iOS does not have a Home Page setting, so it’s one way that iOS and Android differ.
Other difference in the iOS dashboard (New Tab Page) is you can actually add Favorites to it.
But Android is still Top Sites only, which only shares whatever sites you visited the most. So at least that aspect of iOS is better.
Ok thanks for verifying. That kind of stinks, because Homepage at least on Android does feel that it directly controls New Tabs, thus they almost feel named backwards. As Homepage if set to a custom URL, does make Brave on a new tab, automatically open that URL. In fact, the New Tab Page likely should be called the “Brave Homepage” setting, simply because Homepage on Android is also directly affecting new tabs, not just the home page button.
I don’t see that on Android. Homepage for me on Android only goes to what I designate at the Homepage if I hit the Home button. If I open NTP, it always just opens to the Dashboard. Much like on iOS, it seems there’s no way to change the NTP setting itself.
In something of an example in the below, all my tabs were closed. The following screenshot shows where I opened a new tab and it went to the dashboard.
Third screenshot is where hitting the Home button took me to Startpage. Final screenshot is just to show the Homepage settings I had put in the Android I was testing on. (I use iPhone primarily, test Android either on Bluestacks or on my old Samsung Galaxy S9)
And like I said, iOS just is completely missing Homepage as an option to begin with. No such thing is there.
Desktop has the best setup. You can set the NTP to be your Homepage, then set the Homepage for whatever website you want. From that, every new tab or whatever is going to be that website.
Oh shoot you’re right, I have Brave set to close when the last tab is closed, it didn’t instinctually click in that when I closed the last tab to test, it closed Brave, so re-opening it of course went to Google, as it wasn’t a “new tab” technically, and when I pressed to add a new tab, I might have miss-tapped and re-opened the Google tab, thinking it was a new one.
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Was wondering if you found some setting I had been overlooking! lol. But yeah, Brave has a lot of oddities on things. It’s also a little crazy how things can deviate so much in capabilities between iOS, Android, and Desktop. It would be nice if they could all be a bit more seamless.
I honestly swear I did at one point hit new tab and it went to Google, but I must simply be wrong, because replicating it does exactly as you said.
But then again, I swear I saw a post earlier about someone on Android (though Android 15, I’m on 12) saying they had weirdness with the new tab page and “phantom tabs”. Now I’m second guessing myself, did I just have that happen and not even recognize it? 
I hope not, because my phone wasn’t screen recording it to catch it to know if I tapped correctly or not now. Gonna have to just admit I must have tapped wrong.
You can only do that by setting the homepage to an URL, on the desktop version. Only then do you have the option to set the New Tab Page to the homepage, which is a little confusing in comparison to a simpler system where you can directly assign a new tab to an URL.
The problem remains that, either with a search page or an URL, the focus is set on the address bar despite some (most) URLs normally setting the focus on the search field (and there’s no shortcut for that, while there’s one to get to the address bar).
As I see it, there’s no need to focus on the address bar if the user has set a specific URL. It’s only necessary if a new tab is a blank page. The obvious fix would be to force the focus on the address bar only in the case of the “Blank page” choice. With the other choices, it could be set by default to the address bar, but the loaded page should be able to change the focus (as it does when its URL is typed manually in the address bar or if a bookmark/hyperlink is used).
It’s quite inconvenient.
Big +1 for this feature. Firefox on ios and ipados has this feature and is greatly enjoyed. Please let us customize the new tab page to be a URL on mobile!